I was at a Marketing conference in Sydney last week when someone asked the 'woman' question; in this case, "why are there so few female creative directors?" All the men on stage (and they were all men) laughed it off, shuffled their feet, offered up India as an example* of equality in the workplace and we moved on to the next question. The following panel of 'experts' were so chauvinistic and condescending (to the 'young' men as well) that I'm supposing they would have answered the question with, "what are you doin' out of the kitchen honey?" I'm talking to you Harold Mitchell. Thank goodness for Amy Smith, Chief Executive of JWT - you rock and I'll be coming to work for you when I get my Masters.
A similar question was raised in NY, read about it here at Design Observer.
I ask myself, do I WANT to try and get ahead in this competitive dog eat dog homo erotic pseudo mateship bully boy playground environment? What is 'ahead'? Can you ever get to 'the top' and is 'the top' necessarily a good place to be? Perhaps if more men asked themselves these questions and developed their own definition of success rather than compare the size of their wallets/cars/penises we could begin to build a more equal environment.
* would YOU be happy climbing the corporate ladder knowing it was
because of the women in your servitude who had no shot at the
opportunities you do because of the caste they were born into? Equality for you is not gained at the expense of others.
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